17^ Lloyd's natural history. 



depths of the forest In the fruit season they come nearer to 

 the coast, while at the height of the rains they frequent the 

 river banks. 



Habits. — The Orang-utan, the " forest-Hving Man" of the 

 Malays, and the " Mias " of the Bornean natives, lives solitary 

 in the leafy tops of the trees in the forests, except at the pair- 

 ing season. A female is generally accompanied by one of her 

 progeny, sometimes by two, the one always an infant, and the 

 other a more or less grown but immature individual of a previous 

 birth; for her young — of which she has only one at a birth — do 

 not shift for themselves before they are approaching tv/o years 

 of age. At what age they attain maturity is unknown, but it 

 is probably not before twelve to fifteen years. The infant clings 

 by its arms to its mother when she is climbing, by grasping the 

 hair of her arm-pits, while its legs embrace her sides above the 

 hip. As already observed, the Orangs have none of the marvellous 

 agility of the Gibbons. They are slow and deliberate in their 

 movements ; " surprisingly awkward and uncouth," according 

 to Sir James Brooke ; but their long and extremely powerful 

 arms and hook-like fingers, which close with an amazing rigidity 

 of grip, and their mobile legs and hand-like feet, enable them to 

 lift and swing their bodies with great precision from branch to 

 branch and tree to tree. " I have frequently seen them," says 

 Hornaday, "swing along beneath the large limbs as a gymnast 

 sv^ings along a tight rope, reaching six feet at a stretch. When 

 passing from one tree to another, the Orang reaches out and 

 gathers in its grasp a number of small branches that he feels 

 sure will sustain his weight, and then swings himself across." 

 On the ground all this is very different. He walks very badly 

 and unsteadily ; he uses his arms as crutches, leaning his 

 weight upon them with his fingers as already described, and 



